Mothers and babiesGood health is one of the most important determinants of a child’s life chances. All professionals working in the foundation years need to be involved in promoting and encouraging children’s healthy development.

In this section we explore what works:

Partnership working

As professionals working in the foundation years, we all do our bit by taking on the responsibility of partnership working with our colleagues in health, social care and early years services to support better outcomes for children and families.

Early intervention

Early intervention is at the heart of the core purpose of Sure Start Children’s Centres. The Green Paper Support and Aspiration: A new approach to special educational needs and disability placed an emphasis on early identification and intervention to improve outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities.

Information sharing

Evidence consistently shows that effective and appropriate information sharing underpins robust integrated working, which in turn leads to better outcomes for children and families. In Supporting Families in the Foundation Years, the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department of Health (DH), committed to working with sector partners to promote good practice and overcome lingering barriers to effective sharing of data and information amongst the early years workforce.

Information for parents

The Department of Health‘s factsheet for parents ‘Getting to know your health visiting and school nursing service’ outlines what parents can expect from their local services and how health visitors can support children from 0-5 and their families.

Start4Life and the NHS Information Service for Parents have merged to form the Start4Life Information Service for Parents – one source of advice and information for all parents-to-be and parents of under 5s. Encourage parents to sign up for the service and receive free email and texts covering all aspects of pregnancy and early years.